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Twitch streamer Tyler "Ninja" Blevins smashed the record for concurrent viewers, crossing the 635,000 mark, mostly due to who he's playing Fortnitewith: music megastar Drake. It's not all Drake or the popular battle royale game though, as Ninja is the most popular streamer on the platform -- he has over 3 million followers and with over 160,000 paid subscribers, an estimated monthly income of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Back in February Twitch confirmed that the record number of concurrents for an individual had been set at over 388,000 by Dr. Disrespect, but now there's a new champ.

Razer is known as a gaming laptop, mouse and keyboard maker, but it actually offers a wide variety of products, like Xbox controllers, power banks, and even an upcoming phone. Razer also makes webcams like the Stargazer, which is built for streaming video games. Now Razer is upping its streaming game with two new "streamer certified" peripherals, a webcam with a built-in ring light called Kiyo as well as a USB condenser mic named Seiren X.

Twitch released a desktop app earlier this month offering more functionality than its browser version, but they saved even bigger news for PAX West. Today at the games show, the streaming channel platform announced that creators will soon be able to load up a whole slew of new third-party tools and extensions to interact with followers in many more ways. Best of all, developers will be able to make their own plug-ins.

Overwatch and Hearthstone fans will now find it easier to discover livestreams most relevant to them after Twitch introduced new channel filtering options for the popular Blizzard titles. From today, viewers can open a new menu that appears at the top of each directory, which allows them to select channels based on what hero a streamer is playing, as well as the opportunity to filter by game mode, player rank, number of wins in Hearthstone games.

Tom Wheldon started streaming on Twitch as JurassicJunkieLive two months ago. He was an intrepid tinkerer and a veteran video creator who started making YouTube videos before it was the cool kids' multi-million-dollar industry. Wheldon regularly discussed video games, so Twitch felt like a natural evolution of his online presence -- his channel quickly earned a following of about 100 folks, some of them tuning in every Friday to watch Wheldon scream his way through a horror game.

Last week, Wheldon booted up Outlast 2 for his regular "Frightday" stream, and he became Twitch legend.

At long last, Amazon is selling its new Fire TV Stick in the UK. The cheap media streamer, which comes with an Alexa-enabled voice remote, first debuted in the US last October. As you would expect, the hardware lets you search for movies and TV shows, launch apps and control playback. Like the Echo, however, Alexa can also be used for a number of "skills," such as asking for the weather or dimming your smart lights. The stick itself has also been upgraded with a new processor, making it 30 percent faster than the previous model, and supports the speedy 802.11ac WiFi protocol.

While Sky might be busy readying its new Sky Q service, the company has also found time to show Now TV customers some love. Just five months after it launched its second-generation Now TV streamer, Sky has ramped things up a bit by introducing the new NOW TV Smart Box, a device that it says will bring together a "wide range of pay TV content and over 60 live free-to-air channels."

How long can the current Apple TV survive? The sleek streaming box has stayed the same, more or less, for just over three years now. Sure, there's been a steady stream of new apps and software features, but the components and basic experience have barely changed. Meanwhile, we've seen Roku, Amazon, Google and others bombard the market with rival hardware that offer new, modern takes on navigation and discovery. We're still waiting on a major Apple TV refresh, but in the meantime the company has dropped the price of its set-top box yet again; now, you can pick one up for £59 rather than £79 in the UK.

Following Sky's big Sky Sports News rebrand, it was only a matter of time until the updated channel made its way to the broadcaster's Now TV set-top box via an app. Already delivering breaking news on smartphones and tablets, the new Sky Sports News HQ app comes to the £10 streamer today, offering 24/7 access to sports updates, breaking news and highlights. While access to the app isn't free, there are a couple of easy ways unlock it, as long as you subscribe to Sky's existing Now TV packages. One way is to buy a Sky Sports Day Pass or the new Sky Sports Week Pass, which will allow you to access the channel for up to 30 days after your current pass has expired. Sky's making it available to Entertainment or Sky Movies pass holders too, meaning that if you're already putting money down to catch up with the Lannistersor watch Sandra Bullock float around in space, you'll be able to follow all of the latest player movements come Transfer Deadline Day.

Apple today introduced a new, cheaper iMac, but that wasn't the only update it made to its online store. In a move that will do nothing to dampen speculation of a new Apple TV, the company has slashed £20/€10 off the cost of its streaming set-top box in the UK and Europe. That means you can now pick up an Apple TV for £79 in the UK and €99 elsewhere on the continent. The reduction brings Apple's Store in line with prices we'd seen from third-party retailers like Amazon but also rival streamers like the Roku 3.

When the original iUSBport made its debut at CES last year it was called the CloudFTP. Since then, it changed its name and today it gained some new relatives -- the iUSBport mini, 2 and HD. For those who aren't familiar with the technology, it's battery-powered file server that connects USB storage devices and streams their content over WiFi, and it can serve as an external battery for those devices, too.

The iUSBport2 looks much the same as the CloudFTP, but streams data at a 50 percent faster rate (30mbps) and can connect to up to 12 devices at a time or send out five simultaneous streams of 1080p video. It also packs two USB ports, a microSDXC slot, and a larger 3300mAH battery than its predecessor. Plus, it charges via micro-USB and has a small LCD display. Its cousin, the larger iUSBport HD, has the same capabilities and LCD status screen as the 2, but it's larger chassis comes with a 2.5-inch HDD with up to 2TB of storage. It also has an SDXC card slot, one USB 3.0 port, and a 5,200mAH rechargeable cell. Lastly, there's the iUSBport mini, which looks like an overgrown flash drive. It has single USB port -- for connecting powered external HDDs -- and microSD slot, and can connect up to eight devices or stream three 720p videos simultaneously. All three iUSBports will be available in Q1 of this year, with the HD starting at $160, the 2 costing $150 and the mini running $70.%Gallery-175226%%Gallery-175230%

Anyone who follows the home entertainment space closely probably agrees that TV is broken: archaic user interfaces, pricey bundles, six remotes that each do one thing, all limited to the confines of your home. Of course, realizing it's broken and knowing how to fix it are two different things. One attempt at a fix is Simple.TV. This $149 box (plus $59 a year for service) bridges the gap between the various devices you already own and the world of broadcast television. It allows you to access the plethora of content available via unencrypted digital cable, or for free via an antenna, on just about any device you own -- tablet, smartphone, PC or even a TV. Sounds pretty great, huh? But does it deliver? And can it replace your cable box and the high-priced service that goes with it? Just click on through, and you'll find out.%Gallery-169492%

The Kickstarter success known as Simple.TV had let it be known that units would start showing up at backers' doorsteps around October 10th-15th, and now those who happily invested on the project will be pleased to know the company's doing just as it promised. Meanwhile, folks who were late to the Kickstarter shindig can still grab a simplified video streamer for themselves via the outfit's site, where a Simple.TV Limited, Premier and Lifetime can be found for $149, $199 and $299, respectively. In case you need a quick refresh, the Simple.TV puck will let users watch and record live TV, which can then be easily streamed to a variety of devices -- including, as you can see above, an iPad, Mac or PC as well as Roku boxes. You'll find more info on what bundle is best suited for you at the source link below.

According to Simple.TV, there have been articles circulating around the interwebs that may have caused confusion amongst parties interested about the shipping dates of its facile white puck. So, in order to induce some clarity, the folks behind the project have posted a Kickstarter update to let its backers know their Simple.TVs will be arriving soon enough -- somewhere between October 10th and 15th, to be precise. On the other hand, Simple.TV is also set to start taking pre-orders on its website tomorrow from people who missed out on the crowd-funded party, with these particular units estimated to ship "within 20 days" after the order has been placed. The good news is we're only a couple of weeks away from its long-overdue arrival; in the meantime, however, don't forget we have our own hands-on for you to graciously pore over.

Back when we first reviewed the TiVo Premiere for iPad app, there were folks who complained about not being able to stream content. It seems, though, that TiVo was one step ahead of us: back at CES the company teased a transcoder -- a device that would later be known as the Stream. As its name suggests, this little box streams recordings from your TiVo Premiere to as many as four iOS devices with the help of your local network. You can also use it to transfer shows for on-the-go viewing. So is it worth the additional $129? Let's find out.%Gallery-163753%

If you're a streamer who shuns plastic disks and their ilk, but still wants 3D, there's good news: Syabas has announced the Popcorn Hour A-400 network media player. Thanks to a dual-core video processor, the box can mulch through 3D Blu-ray content (ripped, presumably), while also supporting studio-level features like detail enhancement and debanding. Like its A-300 predecessor, the streamer can dock a hard disk for content storage, and connects to your network via ethernet or optional WiFi. Other connections include an SD card reader, HDMI 1.4, eSATA and USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 (pending confirmation). On top of giving you access to your own content, the Syabas Apps Market brings YouTube, BBC's iPlayer, and 90 or so other free or premium channels. It'll hit stores in October with a €289 price tag, so if that sounds like your bag of popcorn, see the PR for more info.

When setting up a gadget for review, delicately unboxing and smelling the carcinogenic whiff of freshly molded plastics, we typically feel some amount of excitement and anticipation to see how it stacks up against the competition. It's either that or a resigned sense of duty as we run yet another iterative evolution of this or that laptop through the same benchmarks to see just how this year's model stacks up to the older model now being sold on discount. With the Nexus Q, though, we felt something different altogether: genuine curiosity.

Why? Well, it's a high-end device with a $299 MSRP, a price that's multiple times higher higher than media streamers like the Apple TV, anything from Roku and, indeed, Google's own Google TV. And yet, the Q has considerably less functionality than any of them. Largely because of this, many who witnessed its unveiling at Google I/O were quick to write it off. Despite having our own doubts we pledged to give it a fair swing, a week of solid use at home and with friends. How did it do? Does this high-concept device with high-end componentry make up for some decidedly low-end capabilities? There's only one way to find out.%Gallery-159848%

"We're missing a nut," says a bemused Matt Hershenson, former Danger founder and now Google's director of hardware for Android, pointing at a vacant spot on an exploded photo of the Nexus Q. Its parts are strewn out across a white background, perfectly arranged in a linear pattern that starkly contrasts with the spherical nature of the thing. "Wow, you're right," agrees Joe Britt, engineering director at Google and another former Danger founder. "It's like the illuminators, you know, the monks who used to draw up the codexes." Hershenson picks up the reference without missing a beat: "Everybody needs to make at least one mistake. Nothing can be perfect."

That goes against everything else we've been learning from the pair, who spend 45 minutes walking us through every detail of what went into the development of the new Nexus Q. They worked hand-in-hand with engineers and designers and materials experts, ensuring everything from the bearings to the LEDs were, well, perfect. But there is one thing, something larger, that many have said is a crucial flaw in this illuminated device: pricing. Will people pay $299 for a high-concept, low-functionality social media streamer? Join us after the break for how the Q came to be, and why Britt and Hershenson think it will be a success.%Gallery-159318%

What is the Q? Well, it's a ball... a ball that plays music. And videos. And it also lights up. It's what Google is calling it a "social streaming device" but what's most important is that this is finally the realization of the Android@Home standard that was unveiled last year. While the styling is what'll immediately grab you, it's the functionality that Google thinks will rock your living room. Join us after the break for our first impressions of this category-defying device.%Gallery-159318%

A raft of goodies has been tacked on to Western Digital's TV Live and TV Live Hub media players including new streams and Vudu movie downloading, but the addition of SlingPlayer might be the most intriguing. Depending on your region, you'll see new channels on the WD set-tops, including The AOL On Network, Red Bull TV, ABC iview (Australia), Acetrax Movies, Maxdome and BILD TV-App. Walmart's Vudu service will also be added, letting domestic and some foreign users buy or rent from a library of 70,000 downloadable films and TV shows. Finally, if you're a frequent traveler, you can pack your WD box and fire up the new SlingPlayer on your hotel TV to watch hometown broadcasts wherever you may be. Provided you've got a Slingbox back home, of course. To find out more and see what's available in your country, check the source or PR below.

IRVINE, Calif., June 5, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Western Digital® (NASDAQ: WDC), the world's leader in external storage solutions and maker of the popular WD TV® media player family, today introduced a variety of new entertainment options for the WD TV Live™ and WD TV Live Hub™ media players. Current and new users can now enjoy Red Bull TV™, ABC iview (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), Acetrax™, Maxdome, the BILD TV-App, and the AOL On Network. They can also watch live and recorded TV with the new SlingPlayer® app and save their premium HD movies to the WD TV Live Hub's internal storage with VUDU.

WD's new entertainment choices add to the WD TV media player family's prodigious ability to play personal content such as videos, photos and music by supporting a wide range of media formats. Users can watch content located on any networked PC or Mac® computer in the home, from a network drive such as WD's My Book® Live™ personal cloud storage, and from any directly connected digital camcorder, camera, or USB drive. WD TV Live Hub owners can also save and share pictures and videos from outside the home, using the WD Photos™ app for iPhone®, iPad® and Android™ mobile devices.

"WD continuously listens to its customers, and adds the content options they want," said Scott Vouri, vice president and general manager, WD connected home solutions. "With today's addition of hot international and domestic channels, live TV through SlingPlayer, and HD movie rentals, purchases and downloads through VUDU, the WD TV media players truly provide the most entertainment."

The WD TV Live Hub is the only media player to offer direct HD movie download service for today's hottest new movie releases purchased from VUDU's large library of movies and TV shows. VUDU is a subscription-free, HD video streaming service, which offers more than 70,000 blockbuster titles including new releases, Hollywood classics, independent films, and TV shows. Because it has an integrated 1TB hard drive, the WD TV Live Hub can save and play back purchased digital content from VUDU, including the high-quality HDX™ video format that features 1080p Full HD and rich Dolby Digital Plus™ 7.1 audio. "By centralizing their entertainment on the WD TV Live Hub, our customers get high-performance full-HD movie playback without overloading their home network or cluttering up the hard drives of other PCs in the house," added Vouri. From "Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol" to "The Muppets" WD brings today's top movies to the WD TV Live Hub for a cinema-like experience at home through the available VUDU service.

New Services[1] Now Available:

SlingPlayer (worldwide) – With a Slingbox® connected in your home, the SlingPlayer app brings your living room TV experience to your connected device in any room – around the home or around the world. The AOL On Network (US) – The AOL HD app, part of The AOL On Network, features high-definition technology, lifestyle, celebrity and entertainment content updated daily from The AOL On Network, which features video from brands like Engadget, TechCrunch, The Huffington Post and Moviefone. Red Bull TV (worldwide) – A unique online portal offering exclusive high quality programs from the World of Red Bull in HD. Available to nearly all devices – Red Bull TV offers worldwide live webcasts and a thematic catalogue of VODs complementing exclusive shows of the multimedia content of redbull.com. ABC iview (Australia) – ABC iview is Australia's most popular catch-up TV service and is run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). It features 14-day catch-up from channels ABC1, ABC2, ABC3, ABC4Kids and ABC News 24. Acetrax movies (UK, Ireland, Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy and Austria) – Available on the WD TV Live only, this service offers blockbuster new release and library movies from the major Hollywood studios. maxdome (Germany) – Available on the WD TV Live only, the most popular German video-on-demand service maxdome delivers over 45,000 major film and TV titles. BILD TV-App (Germany) – With the BILD TV-App users navigate easily and comfortably with the remote control through Germany's largest news and entertainment portal. The application offers the latest news and videos from politics, lifestyle, entertainment and sports, as well as the pictures of the day.

Availability

The WD TV Live and WD TV Live Hub can be purchased at select retailers and online at wdstore.com.

About WD

WD, a storage industry pioneer and long-time leader, provides products and services for people and organizations that collect, manage and use digital information. The company designs and produces reliable, high-performance hard drives and solid state drives that keep users' data accessible and secure from loss. Its storage technologies serve a wide range of host applications including client and enterprise computing, embedded systems and consumer electronics, as well as its own storage systems. Its home entertainment products enable rich engagement with stored digital content.

WD was founded in 1970. The company's products are marketed to leading OEMs, systems manufacturers, selected resellers and retailers under the Western Digital®, WD® and HGST™ brand names. Visit the Investor section of the company's website (www.westerndigital.com) to access a variety of financial and investor information.

Western Digital, WD, the WD logo, WD TV, and My Book are registered trademarks in the U.S. and other countries; WD TV Live and My Book Live are trademarks of Western Digital Technologies, Inc. Other marks may be mentioned herein that belong to other companies. Pictures shown may vary from actual products. Not all products may be available in all regions of the world. All product and packaging specifications subject to change without notice. As used for storage capacity, one terabyte (TB) = one trillion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment.

Still rockin' one of those (cargo) pocket-sized GoFlex streaming drives we showed you a while back? Marvelous. According to Gear Diary, Seagate's given the site intel saying it's getting ready to roll out a Satellite firmware refresh on the 19th of this month. Allegedly, the update will boost the limit on the number of devices that can be connected simultaneously, making the jump from three to eight, as well as promising to double your battery life in the process. The company says the updated firmware will come gratis to all "original devices" (hear that Androids?), while all new GoFlex drives are expected to ship with it on board. And now, you know.

The company that has almost single handedly spurred the golden age of CableCARD has found a new way to deliver its technology to consumers with a 6 tuner multi-room DVR with a 2TB hard drive, codenamed Q, and its companion extender, codenamed Echo. No word on the price of either but both are expected to ship in 2012.

While the Q and Echo might look like Microsoft Media Center, they aren't. Based on the Windows 7 Embedded platform, the Q picks up where Microsoft left off but still leverages the great DVR functionality and free guide data. In addition to being used as an extender for the Q, the Echo is also a fully compliant Extender for Windows Media Center. The Echo will support both ethernet and MoCA for communication to the source and has HDMI-CEC for control as well as an included remote. When used with the Q, it will extend the entire Q experience, including streaming sources and enhanced search that facilitates content discovery. Speaking of the Q, that slot up front is a Blu-ray drive and in addition to being able to play Blu-ray Discs, the plan is to integrate as many streaming sources as possible (no partners to announce yet, though). The Q will also work with other Extenders for Windows Media Center, like the Xbox 360, but while the custom themes are there, the other streaming options aren't. Ceton has even developed a Windows 8 Metro and Windows Phone 7 app to extend the Q experience to the handhelds -- iOS apps are on the road map. These apps are primarily designed to be companions to the Q's search and discovery features, but will provide access to content via WiFi.

One of the many innovative products we checked out tonight was this ViXS XCode 4210 powered Simple.TV box, which tunes into free, unencrypted channels (even in HD) via cable or antenna. Where it starts to differ from other boxes like Sling and Monsoon however, is that it eschews any direct video out or even passthrough, working solely to transcode those feeds to variable bitrate MPEG-4 streams for playback on internet-connected mobile devices and TV boxes. Besides the missing TV out, this headless unit also only supports DVRs courtesy of whatever storage you may add yourself, since it doesn't contain any. The Simple.TV box is set to launch this spring and initially should have viewing apps available for Roku and iPad, with Boxee Box and Google TV viewers eventually planned as well (there is also a $29 Windows Media Center app). Currently the pricing is set at $149, and while streaming to another device in the home and simple DVR function are free to use, adding a guide and allowing streaming to up to 5 devices over the internet will require another $4.99 per month. If you're interested, check out the video after the break and keep a spot near your coax line open.
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appscesces 2012ces2012connected tvconnectedtvdvrhands-onhdhdpostcrosshdtvotaplaceshifterplaceshiftingqamsimple tvsimple.tvsimpletvstreamerstreamingtranscodetvvideovixsxcodexcode 4210xcode4210Tue, 10 Jan 2012 04:47:00 -050021|20144819https://www.engadget.com/2011/12/23/roku-brings-v3-1-software-update-to-first-gen-boxes-amazon-inst/https://www.engadget.com/2011/12/23/roku-brings-v3-1-software-update-to-first-gen-boxes-amazon-inst/https://www.engadget.com/2011/12/23/roku-brings-v3-1-software-update-to-first-gen-boxes-amazon-inst/#comments

Early birds may get the worms, but early adopters aren't always as equally rewarded. But, as they say, maybe first-gen Roku owners should simply be elated that their box is still on the update trail. A week (and change) after the Roku 2 and Roku LT saw a fairly significant software update, the company is now pushing v3.1 to OG models. As the company says: "Unless your Roku player is smaller than a hockey puck, this update applies to you." The fresh bytes provide added enhancements to support the official Roku iPhone app, improved playback of MP4 files streamed over the internet and over USB via the USB Media Player channel, and the ability to purchase Roku players, accessories and toys within the Roku Channel Store.

Furthermore, we're told that issues found when navigating channels that display content in a grid screen have been solved, and perhaps most importantly, there's support for Amazon's downright delightful new Instant Video channel. Every last unit should see the update pushed their way in the coming hours, but if you're not exactly the "patient" type, just head to Settings -> Playing info -> Check for update.
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amazonamazon instantamazoninstantcontentfirmwarefirmware updatefirmwareupdatehdhdpostminimediamedia streamermedia streamingmediastreamermediastreamingprogrammingrokuroku 2roku ltroku2rokultsoftware updatesoftwareupdatestreamstreamerstreamingupdatevideoFri, 23 Dec 2011 08:52:00 -050021|20134022https://www.engadget.com/2011/12/13/popcorn-hour-bulks-up-for-the-c-300-can-juggle-an-extra-hard-di/https://www.engadget.com/2011/12/13/popcorn-hour-bulks-up-for-the-c-300-can-juggle-an-extra-hard-di/https://www.engadget.com/2011/12/13/popcorn-hour-bulks-up-for-the-c-300-can-juggle-an-extra-hard-di/#comments

Some people may not be willing just yet to leave the world of physical media. Those circumspect media consumers may be intrigued by the latest Popcorn Hour box. Looking more substantial than the recent A-300, the C-300 model includes a 2.5-inch color TFT display at the front and packs space for both a quick-removable 3.5-inch HDD and an internal 2.5-inch SATA drive. A Blu-ray drive can also be mounted to the removable HD rack and you can expect support for the same plethora of file types we've come to expect from the Popcorn Hour family. Network options have been expanded, with a new built-in aerial supporting an optional Mini MII PCI WiFi N card. Syabas is already offering up a full UI walkthrough at the source below and you can take a peak at the C-300's built-in app market in action right after the break.